


glittering laughter

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Drabble Sequence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 08:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20617835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Azula tells her later, on the road, “The city was dreary without you, Ty Lee."





	glittering laughter

It’s not every girl who can casually join a circus. It’s not every girl a circus will accept. The reason they hired Ty Lee, they tell her, is because she has two things a performer really needs: First, a unique skill—her acrobatics—and second, the ability to make performance look easy, to always smile and laugh and make the crowd smile and laugh as well.

Ty Lee is free-flying, free-floating, free-falling. She likes the description of herself as a performer: it makes her feel better about the fact that her smile often feels fake. Maybe that doesn’t matter here.

When Azula shows up, Ty Lee’s voice goes for a moment but her smile only widens. She hugs Azula as soon as she’s sure Azula will let her, and giggles nervously.

Azula tells her later, on the road, “The city was dreary without you, Ty Lee. Without your glittering laughter.”

“Oh, it can’t have been. You always have so much fun, Azula.”

“If it was so fun being with me, you would never have left.”

“That was about my family, really. I missed you. If you missed me, I’m sorry.”

Azula laughs. “Don’t be sorry. It hardly matters that much.”

Ty Lee reflected laughter from Azula when they were young, even when she wasn’t sure what they were laughing at. Azula found amusement in strange places: in Zuko, who always seemed scary to Ty Lee; in dangerous stunts; in insults. Ty Lee’s sense of humor was slower, but when Azula laughed, she generally laughed too—Azula’s mirror, then.

She ran away because she wanted to know who she was without her siblings, but also, she wanted to know who she was without Azula too.

But the person she was without Azula was so sad. Maybe being her wasn’t worth it.

Azula smirks into kisses and laughs up against Ty Lee’s collarbone, sending thrills and shivers over Ty Lee’s trembling skin. Being in love is the loveliest game. Ty Lee doesn’t want to take it too seriously. It should be a natural extension of friendship, impetuous infatuation and exploration like all the crushes her friends in the circus talked about. But then Azula says, one night, “Never leave me, Ty Lee,” and Ty Lee knows that none of this is a joke. She’s serious when she responds, “Of course I won’t,” but on the other hand, what else could she say?

“But she didn’t love you,” Suki says.

Ty Lee plays with a blade of grass. She smiles, just a little. “I think she loved me as much as she loved anyone.”

“Ty Lee, she betrayed you. She sent you to jail.”

“I betrayed her first. But it’s stupid talking like we were star-crossed lovers or anything. It was just a fling.” She shrugs. “She would have gotten tired of it eventually.”

When Suki is gone, she feels the laughter building up in her like a tidal wave. Mad laughter, like she heard when she last visited Azula in her cell.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sapphic September prompt of "Azula/Ty Lee, 'And what excites my mind, /Your laughter, glittering. So,/ When I see you, for a moment, / My voice goes'." Which I believe is a Sappho fragment. Very fun!


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